Why are we so surprised of this horrible display of barbarism in of by the state of Alabama? A state well known for its history of Jim Crow institutionalism, poorly educated populist, and neanderthal mentality. And if that isn't enough; the not-so-great state of Alabama produced the likes of men such as Jeff Sessions and Roy Moore.
8
Let me guess, Jeff Dunn is a Republican.
2
If you examine all the reasons given for the death penalty, you realize that the only “reason” that it still exists is revenge. The death penalty does not deter people from murdering one another. Murder rates are higher where there is a death penalty. Yes, killing the murderer does protect society from the murderer doing it again, but so does prison. And, the fact is that poor people who can’t afford lawyers are relying on lawyers who half the time have never defended a death penalty case, are paid a small fraction of what they would normally make and worst of all, don’t have the resources to pay for private investigators, expert witnesses, etc. to properly represent someone facing death. Trials are adversarial and the district attorney can severely out gun the most dedicated defender of someone facing the death penalty. Then there’s the problem of prosecutor malfeasance, erroneous eyewitness testimony and other intentional and unintentional “errors” by the police, the DA and expert witnesses.
The butchery which Mr. Hamm suffered violated the Constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The state’s vindictive pursuit of his death is repugnant to civilized people. Our judicial system should not be involved in this sickening search for a vein which hasn’t collapsed in a man who is dying.
3
The 33 states that have lethal injection as the preferred method of execution need to man up. Either do this right or don't do it at all. Don't tiptoe around the unpleasant task of putting people to death. Find a better method (robotic firing squad comes to mind) or put people in prison for life without the possibility of parole. Personally I prefer the latter, and I pray some day the Supreme Court will abolish the death penalty. But in the meantime it is cruel and unusual punishment for us all to watch as states like Alabama make a mockery of justice.
1
Having a hard time mustering up sympathy for a sexual predator.
Maybe he's just getting what he deserves.
3
I'm still waiting for a conservative to explain to me how the State (i.e.the government) should have the power of life and death over an individual.
This catapults Alabama into the eighth century. They are making great strides in their evolutionary ascent.
4
What is life without parole? You go to prison and die there.
What is the death penalty? You go to prison and die there.
What is the difference? Roughly 30 years of appeals and $5 million. Oh, and the knowledge that as a society, we have inevitably killed some innocent people.
5
Let's take pause and remember that this man is a murderer, proven and convicted, who irreversibly tortured his victim.
4
One senses how disappointed the authorities in Alabama would be if this man's terminal cancer deprives them of the opportunity to execute him. Clearly, this is no longer about justice, but rather simple, retribution, the more cruel the better. When the state's motivations descend to that level, they longer have any possible claim on holding the high moral ground.
No doubt the State of Florida will seek the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz. This is odd because we keep hearing that his crime was a result of mental illness which would appear to eliminate this punishment.
Isn't it odd how politicians can talk out of both sides of their mouths.
But Alabama has really low taxes!!!
1
You can't love war and decry death penalty.
What, really, is the death penalty other than life without parole in another form? All the death penalty accomplishes, other than the debasement of those who still practice it, is to attribute the technical cause of death to a government entity rather than the passage of time. It is barbaric and irreversible. Enlightenment and evolution are sorely lacking on this subject, at least in the U.S.
Those who oppose the death penalty find obscure cases with unusual developments. They do not tell us the details of the crime, but they go on and on about the unusual development. In my opinion, a convincing argument against the death penalty has to take on the toughest case. Mr. Cohen should tell us why Nikolas Cruz shouldn't be executed, even if all 17 families testify he should die and even if Mr. Cruz laugh in their faces. Convince me on that one and then you convince me.
1
During my adult life, I've made the journey from passively approving of capital punishment to opposing it.
I won't go into the various considerations that changed by mind. For that matter, I recognize that the need for an accumulation of considerations may make me a poor example for others. I'll just mention one thing that did not affect my opinion but that may carry weight with those who feel that justice has not been served for the victims and their survivors until the criminal has been put to death.
Once the criminal is dead, he's out of it. For him, any suffering or prospect of suffering is at an end. If there was ever a chance that he'd be tormented by the thought of his crime, there no longer is. Even the punishment of confinement among felons is over. The criminal escapes into a dreamless sleep, leaving those who loved the victim to suffer day and night as long as they live.
If you really want to *punish* the perpetrators of heinous crimes, don't snuff out their lives. Drag out their lives, with no chance of parole.
I'm a lawyer. In my blog I have argued that the death penalty is not only cruel and unusual punishment but it forecloses the chance to learn something about the causes of the violence that landed Hamm on death row.
Has anybody bothered to read the purpose of incarceration? That includes the prosecutors, many of whom see death penalty convictions as their ticket to higher office. Many of those on death row have been rehabilitated, but we learn even from those who haven't been rehabilitated.
Revenge by surviving victims or relatives of victims is hardly evidence of being civilized. Take some time to read about Norway, a civilized country that abolished the death penalty and has achieved positive results in treating prisoners as human beings.
It's way past time to join the civilized world.
4
In addition to these horrific details, Mr. Cohen, could you discuss the contrast of other nations? Explain how the EU and other countries in the world have long abolished the death penalty
Why were so many nations able to do this, when the US still can’t?
Just as with our gun laws, health care access and the Gini Index of economic equality, the US ranks behind many civilized nations.
If we let states decide such matters as capital punishment and gun safety and access, then what is the meaning of the Equal Protection of the Laws clause of the Constitution? Some states will put people to death, others let them live in prison.
What does US citizenship mean? How are we ‘the United States", where some live and some die, according local whims, and such varied definitions of justice and decency?
8
Death penalties should be banned for the simple reason that juries often make mistakes.
6
I support the death penalty in theory, but in practice I oppose it and think it should be eliminated. I have simply read too many stories about people condemned to death who were later found to be innocent. Surely that is the greatest injustice of all. A sentence of life in prison without parole would at least allow people who are later found innocent to be released.
5
So let’s get this straight... some Americans are in favor of the 2nd amendment as a way to limit the power of the Federal Government. The same Americans think the Government should have the ultimate power over citizens, which is the power to kill you.
Huh?
13
As Bryan Stevenson says, "each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done." Yes, Mr. Hamm's crime is despicable, but that doesn't mean he deserves to suffer for more than 30 years on death row, which is worse than living in prison, only to have the execution which he resigned himself to die to be botched. He deserves or deserved by now, to be punished, but killing him after 30 years isn't the answer. After proper rehabilitation, he should've been released to redeem himself by helping society. Alas, even if that didn't happen, no one deserves to be tortured while being put to death before being met with indifference when his killers fail. I understand that some people believe in this type of justice, but it saddens me that they don't realize that even murderers are human beings, with complex emotions, memories, thoughts, and experiences that no one else has. They did what they did for a reason while thinking in a certain way, and with a bit of effort and compassion, they can change. They can redeem themselves.
10
Many death penalty supporters, like the Trump, condemn and ridicule our judicial system. Except, of course, when this system condemns others to die.
Execution of certain convicts is so irrational. The phenomenon has more in common with old fashioned human sacrifice than it does with justice.
3
What is the efficacy ending life on crime?
One widely accepted outcome of abortion on demand (AoD) in the is the drop in crime, as much as 50% [1]. NOT an abortion argument, let’s stipulate that the choice of a mother not to bring a life into the world is the outcome of AoD. Ending a life renders it incapable of committing crime; AND, you don’t have to wait till a crime is committed to get the benefit; victims are spared; the economic impact is lessened.
Also, once the law was changed and services became more and more widely available, not just the mechanism of abortion-on-demand became more socially acceptable, perhaps there was something of a “Regime Change Cascade” over four criteria a) US Constitution, b) patriarchy, c) feminism or misogyny, so feminism d) industrialization of a new health care market [2]. The idea’s time had come.
The present article argues about inhumane executions. Firing squads are the answer {3], simple.
More interestingly, can we start determining the genetic characteristics of criminal behavior, so that mothers can factor into their reproductive decision-making, via genetic counseling, not birthing criminals?
[1] https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt00p599hk/qt00p599...
[2] Thank you Dr. Paul Krugman; SEE imbedded link: https://nyti.ms/2F7lxmT
[3] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-the-firing-squad-more-humane-tha...
1
A bullet usually works.
4
Let me point out that only vegetarians have the moral authority to object to capital punishment. I am a vegetarian who is not against the latter though.
I oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle, because I think it’s wrong for a government to order a person to commit premeditated homicide, which is what a death warrant is. Never mind what the convicted person "deserves." My argument is that the deed needs to be executed by an innocent person. I believe the government is victimizing the executioner. Now, that said, I don’t think the death penalty will be abolished in the United States as long as we are the leaders of the free world. The death penalty will be preserved as a way to protect elected officials and hence our democracy.
Thats one of the arguments for using firing squads. No one knows who fires the fatal shot
1
I read a few paragraphs of this article and just quit reading. Is there any other word for this macabre cruelty but sadism, official sadism, officious sadism, but sadism nonetheless?
4
I was a law enforcement officer, and after receiving an advanced degree when into criminal counseling and rehab. One thing I've know for nearly 50 years, the death penalty is NOT an effective deterrent of crime, nor is it dealt out in a fair and impartial manner. As most of us have know for many years since DNA forensic testing came into play just how many wrongfully convicted people have been jailed and executed based on poor prosecution and incomplete police investigative work. Remember Chicago? This seems to be the trend in America to push for, and achieve very regressive and draconian policies and tactics. Somehow many of us actually believe that the U.S. is a leader in all phases of human endeavor. We sure know one thing for sure, Alabama, and it's "Pedophile over Democrat" Gov. Kay Ivey are NOT leaders on any issue that comes to mind.
7
We are "civilized."
Note to world:
We are a beacon for you to follow and look up to.
What a joke. A very sad one.
8
The state should simply use a firing squad. They are economical and efficient
6
This is a window to our morality: we not only take a life, we demand suffering in the final process. Alabama reflects the worse of taking a human life - the state has no moral high ground. It is base, uncivilized, sadistic at best. A Great Country? Laughable...
7
This is what annoys me about the left, and I’m a liberal. Cohen focuses on a murderer’s suffering, while giving passing mention to the victim and then doubling down on his indifference by questioning the justice of the murderer’s plight. Spare me this guy’s suffering. Where’s the column on the victim?
9
I suppose we would need to read clippings from Alabama newspapers thirty years ago to get the information Bonzo is seeking about Mr. Cunningham. What is happening to Hamm is happening now. This is a news-paper, not a history magazine. So that's one thing. Mr. Cohen focuses on what's wrong with the system, not what's right with Mr. Hamm. He gives short shrift to the possibility that Hamm was wrongfully convicted, to question how and why so many of our state governments insist on implementing the death penalty. As for Pres. Trump's view, he is, as usual, misinformed. He wants to arm teachers because he thinks that would deter the Nikolas Cruzes of our country, when the Nikolas Cruzes of the country do not commit murder so that they can live out joyful lives to age 85. Similarly, the threat of execution, which Pres, Trump claims would be a deterrent, did not deter Hamm from killing Mr. Cunningham in 1987. If the death penalty worked as a deterrent, there would have been no murders in Alabama and all those other states in the last 40 years. As a result, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the purpose of the death penalty is not for the government to fulfill its role in protecting citizens, since it doesn't. In this case, it certainly isn't a matter of saving money, even, since the taxpayers spent lots of money keeping Hamm incarcerated for thirty years. The man is unlikely to live for many more years, so the expense will soon be terminated. What, then, is the point?
2
Er, wouldn't this whole fiascotic attempted-murder scene fall under the rubric of Cruel and Unusual Punishment? Or is this scene commonplace?
One asks and wonders, but doesn't really desire to know.
Can I get a double over here, waiter?
But, sir, you don't drink.
I do now.
3
Although it could be argued the death penalty could serve justice if it could be implemented fairly, it's absolutely clear that the state and federal governments are unquestionably incapable of doing so. The politically motivated district attorneys that seek and are capable of obtaining convictions of a large number of innocents make the entire process cruel and unusual under the Constitution and immoral under any standard. By way of example, the State of Illinois abandoned the death penalty after many of those on death row were found to be completely innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. That example alone should serve as a Constitutional basis for eliminating this barbaric death lottery across the United States permanently.
4
Yeah, I'm sure the whole country wants to emulate Chicago. Secondly, advances in DNA science over the past 5 years or so make conclusively identifying perpetrators much more possible and wrongful convictions much less likely.
Litmus test for hypocrisy....
Ask Right-to-Life zealot Pence what he thinks of the death penalty.... BAZINGA !!
5
No mention of Hamm's crime, or of his victim (or victims) whatsoever.
13
Please, every article of this tenor, advocating for a murderer, whatever his present condition, should start with a detailed description of his crime, how his victim might have pleaded with him to spare his/ her life, etc. I was not even able to google anything about his crimes, only information coming up was about his execution. Lets not forget why is he in this situation. Nobody advocates for the victims even though we are all potential victims.
11
The death penalty teaches the victim a lesson they will never remember.
4
Sounds like you're the kind of person who thinks that taking criminals off the streets to fight crime makes about as much sense as fixing a broken pipe to keep your house from flooding and rotting does.
Just let killers and water in the house flow and do their jobs, right?
2
The death penalty demons are at it again. The state's attempts to kill a dying man are cruel and inhuman. Does Alabama just want to chalk up another execution, perhaps to catch up with Texas and Florida?
3
Savagery. This is humans playing God at its worst.
4
Oh, so you don't consider shooting the motel clerk, (or any murder of a helpless human) to be savagery??
5
Shot his victim in the back of the head, while the poor husband/son/father/brother/cousin was lying face down on the floor no less!
4
It's unfortunate that the injection was botched.
Maybe they need to hire a vascular ultrasound technician.
But let's not lose track of the fact that the guy is known to have murdered at least two people in cold blood.
He deserves to die.
7
“It’s also irreversible in a world where human error is so inescapable as to disqualify such absolute judgment”. This sentiment, brilliantly put by Roger Cohen, is why I am opposed to the death penalty. There have been too many well-known miscarriages of justice in recent decades and many more that we will never know about.
5
Advances in DNA technology have made identifying criminals much more accurate than in the past.
1
Given some of the candidates running in this election cycle (Blankenship, Arpaio; to name a couple) I can confidently say that the title for Dumbest Statement of 2018 is going to have a lot more competition.
5
While not on purpose, lethal injection proved to be cruel and unusual, in this case, it would seem that his blood vessels are too far gone. The governor should give him clemency to die naturally from his terminal illness or use another means of execution that would be quick and not painful. If they try lethal injection it will likely inflict suffering and likely not bring about death.
1
I could detail the reasons why I don't believe in the death penalty here, but I'd rather respond to this article by saying how weird I find it as an Australian that the cultural difference between the American states is so extreme - and that this is tolerated.
In contrast the cultural difference between my state, Victoria (Australia's most progressive) and Queensland (Australia's least progressive) is mild in comparison. Like the difference between California and Arizona?
I know the relative independence of American states is a source of good, not just ill, but still, "a companion of fools shall be destroyed" - and all that. Why be united you states of the United States if it dishonours you?
If I was an American I'd be ashamed that any of my country's states institutes the death penalty. In contrast my greatest shame as an Australian, is that my country's flag has another country's flag on it and it is still constitutionally tied to that country. That's not a shame - that's just an embarrassment.
2
I would like to know more about Patrick Cunningham. How old was he when Hamm executed him?
Did he have a family or was he just starting out in life? Did he work at the motel full time or part time?
Did he have use of his hands and feet when Hamm shot him in the head, or was he bound?
To me, he is a more interesting, and certainly more tragic, figure than Hamm.
6
Does Mr. Cohen have a duty to remind his readers
that Mr. Hamm had, in the previous 24 hours, killed a person
in Mississippi before driving to Alabama and killing Mr. Cunnigham ?
The Victim's side of the story should always be told in cases like this,
should they not ?
6
California voted on eliminating capital punishment in 2016, but the proposition failed. The proposition was opposed by various public employee unions which wield massive political power in California .
California spends about 180 million per year extra on death row inmates, and spent an estimated 300 million each for the last 11 executions, the most recent of which was in 2006.
3
Yeah, they didn't elect Roy Moore - barely. But otherwise, it's still Alabama.
3
A waste of taxpayer’s money for 30 years...
Hang him, shoot him, just do it..!
5
I depart with a number of other progressives on the issue of the death penalty. Used judiciously (no pun intended), it doesn't trouble me. If someone commits unspeakable crimes in his or her 20s, I'm not particularly interested in my tax money going to feed, clothe, house, protect, entertain, educate and provide medical care for this creature for the next 50 years.
The episode of trying to find a suitable vein in Hamm's body obviously sounds ridiculous, but I find myself unmoved that he experienced discomfort. Perhaps instead of indulging in such a farce, the state should have considered one of the dozens of others ways history has shown us people can be swiftly and certainly executed, with no chance for error. Why have we interpreted the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" to mean "free from discomfort?" Quite bluntly, if some monster kidnaps, rapes and murders a half-dozen little girls, I don't give a damn if he gets an ouchie on his way to hell.
11
If taxpayer money is your objection, it's many millions of dollars more expensive to execute someone than to imprison him for life without parole.
The botched executions in Oklahoma and elsewhere were much more than a dose of discomfort. In one case the prisoner was administered the lethal injection for almost an hour before finally dying of a heart attack. During the execution, the man rose from the gurney and cried out that he couldn't breathe. Without effective sedation, the second two drugs cause agonizing pain and suffocation. Prison personnel had to pull the curtains to the viewing chamber so that the prisoner's suffering couldn't be observed.
This is torture. Regardless of what you think of the condemned man, this practice puts us side by side with countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia that condone torture.
5
Reminds me of Ted buddy. I remember the cheers and jeers as he was fried in Florida. It made my blood run cold but I wasn't sorry to see him go.
1
On the way to hell? If you beleive in Hell, what part of Thou Shalt Not Kill don't you believe in?
It's worth noting that Trump's bloodlust is confined to being a 3rd party to it. He lacked the courage to personally fire the FBI director and the deputy director; he recoils from individuals suffering or in distress; he cannot bear the sight of blood. This vile excuse for a leader claims his willingness to enter a location unarmed to confront an active shooter? To find this credible is to believe that the man can also fly; of course, if Trump made such a claim, more than zero of his followers would believe it.
This latest grotesque tableau of Alabama justice is but the end product of our current political tipping point toward more and more macabre spectacles, injustices, wrongful deaths, and needless suffering. As for Gov. Ivey's decision, let's see what passes for courage in Alabama.
3
This case illustrates a number of shortcomings in our criminal justice system. The inadequacy of Hamm's original legal representation exemplifies our failure to achieve the cardinal ideal of equal justice under the law. The public defender program, which depends on state funding, rarely provides indigent defendants with competent legal advice. As in so many other areas of American life, the wealthy enjoy benefits denied to the poor. Only federal funding can reduce the injustice associated with our court system.
The treatment of Hamm by the authorities may reflect the brutal attitudes of elected officials in Alabama, but their behavior represents a much broader problem with societal values. In contrast to many other wealthy countries, the US has long defined criminal justice in terms of revenge. The felon has abused the freedom granted him by our legal system, and therefore we cast him out of society, into the outer darkness of the prison system. Many of these institutions could compete with Dante's vision of hell, with their solitary confinement cells and general dehumanization of prisoners. After release, inmates continue to suffer from restrictions on their rights and activities that make it difficult for them to lead useful lives.
Until Americans reevaluate felons as citizens whom the state must try to rehabilitate and prepare for entry back into society, the treatment of Hamm will serve as nothing more than an extreme example of how a broken system works.
6
Bring back the Guillotines!
4
I wonder what might have happened in Patrick Cunningham's life if he wasn't murdered. What would he have done in 30 yrs time? 30 yrs of breathing, eating, meeting people, making friends, raising kids or grandkids...30 yrs of living living his life and hopefully dying a peaceful death. But he didn't die this way because of one person. He was shot in the head while lying on the floor behind the motel's desk. Doyle Lee Hamm got $350 out of the motel's drawer and another $60 out of Patrick's wallet. $410 for a human life; and Mr. Hamm confessed to pulling he trigger. Although you read none of that in this story, it took me 5 minutes online to find all these disgusting facts about what Doyle Lee Hamm did. I agree, justice is about 29 yrs too late on Mr. Hamm. BTW, he was originally sentenced to die by execution...no problem finding a vein for that to work I don't think
8
...sentenced to die by electrocution...
2
I would dearly love to look into the brains (or hearts, if you prefer) of liberals to find out exactly why they love criminals so much. It can't be imagination or empathy for if it were they would imagine the victim's pain and empathize with the victim's family.
Perhaps reversing the old adage is the correct thing to do-- we need to define a liberal as a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet?
I guess it's just one more aspect of the politics of identity that will forever doom the so-called Democrat party to defeat in the polls-- that is until we have no more elections and fall to internal dictatorship/fascism or external threat (take your pick-- Russia, Islamism, China; cyber-subterfuge, nuclear attack, bio attack). It's their fault we have Trump as president because of their restrictive identity politics that pushed an identity candidate down our throats and identifies with bloodthirsty criminals rather than feeling the pain of working people (of course Trump and the Republicans don't either but they're better at lying about it) and any human being outside the womb who has committed a crime.
What a herd of cats the Democrats are.
2
So shoot him...Alabama earning the honors as the state with the dumbest Americans in office notwithstanding. He’s a convicted murderer...die quicker....
2
When people argue that heaven and hell do exist, I always imagine hell to be like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi not so much for the landscape but because of the attitudes and ignorance that abounds.
7
Thanks for being an example of why so many people don't like yankees.
1
Oh, oh Alabama, likes death, hates pot, hates blacks, (unless they play football), hates immigrants (unless they will do Bamas dirty work that whites won't do for slave wages), hates intelligence, loves god. Go figure.
5
Do you think this thug could swallow a couple of cynide tablets?
4
Death Belt=Bible Belt where hypocrisy knows no bounds. From living in the Deep South, now in my rear view mirror, it's a wretched place. For the life of me I am baffled as to why people move there, or remain there, weather be damned. Man's inhumanity to man is on full display as this OP-ED piece sadly exposes your readers. Jeff Sessions, Franklin Graham, Joel Olsteen, and the list goes on. Do these good Christians ever read the Gospels, for example, Matthew, chapter 25? Glad this piece got published.
7
It's not a question of the barbarism of the murderer. It is a question of the barbarism of the state in removing the murderer from the population. Whether behind bars for life or executed, the murderer is no longer among us to murder another. Prison is no good place to be itself, being a hell on Earth, which can be its intent, but doesn't have to be. Removal from society is the real goal. What happens after that removal tells us who we are.
We can acknowledge that evil is evil, and that punishment is necessary, without possibility of parole.
When a person commits a heinous act, and is caught, convicted and tried, they are isolated to a place from which they cannot escape. They, unlike us, will never have all of the choices we have.
Many people who state that prisoners should be treated horribly and punished severely do not understand the true impact of permanent isolation from choice and society.
If you personally do not choose to take a trip to the Grand Canyon, or go stargazing on a moonless night or go to a wonderful theater or choose to move to a new town for a new job or be able to travel to the beach in the Summer or just go to the next town over to visit friends and try a new restaurant, then you choose not to exercise your freedoms that have been forcibly taken away from the murderer. Forcing a person to never leave a few acres of fenced-in land for the rest of their life is a true hell, all by itself.
All else is the vengeance of the Furies.
7
Alabama is only one of the southern states that I often wish could be surgically cut out of our union. I'm sure there are Some good people there, but they can't make up for the hell-bound, deplorable ones.
4
not surprised - from such a backward state.
1
Our system of justice is seriously flawed. Police lie. Prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence and commit other injustices to get convictions. Judges make mistakes or are sometime corrupt. Legal representation is seriously lacking in both availability and competence for low income and indigent people. Evidence is botched and labs make mistakes. Witnesses are often wrong or conflicting. Jailhouse snitches are notorious for lying for lenience.
Given all that, to have an irreversible penalty in a very imperfect system of justice is a moral outrage. It also diminishes faith in our system of jurisprudence and law enforcement.
Life without parole is justice. Execution is vengeance.
9
What a comedy (or tragedy?) of errors, a vengeful side of justice wronged by human insatiable thirst for theater, blood and 'schandenfreude'. This sequence is very expensive for us taxpayers, but seemingly cheap for the representatives elected to be sober and wise in their decisions as they go on irresponsibly spending time and effort and treasure in a most stupid way. That despicable Trump thinks the death penalty is 'the way' to solve America's drug crisis is not only cruel nor original; it is a vulgar copy of Duterte's criminal mind, as he goes on killing drug addicts with 'gusto', in the Philippines. But then again, Trump remains envious of despot's 'freedom' to screw their own people for personal gain. And that includes Putin, Xi and Erdogan, megalomaniac thugs immune to the rule of law. Haven't we learned anything yet, that we humans, whenever in a position of power, tend to abuse it...even when toothless rules are in place? Are we all as clueless as the 'Jeff Dunn's' of this world? Sure hope not.
4
Crime horrendous. Man redeemable. He tried to console his attorney. Let him die in prison.
3
So Rog, How do you feel about legal abortions particularly when the objective is to birth only a male infant?
1
America annually executes more human beings than Europe and the Americas combined. America's definition of " cruel and unusual punishment" is interred in 1789.
3
In Matthew (5:38-42) in the New Testament, Jesus repudiates the very notion of vengeance."Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
According to Christ’s teachings the death penalty is sacrilege no matter how administered.
6
Some people deserve to die.
However, the death penalty serves only one useful purpose: It proves that we humans are one more soulless species living a godless universe.
3
30 years on death row is outrageous. He should have been executed 20 years ago.
3
Maybe Trump's buddy, Duterte, will be a subcontractor.
2
Guess he shouldn't have killed a motel clerk. He could have avoided all this by not choosing to commit murder, No sympathy. Don't like lethal injection? Bring back hanging.
4
Alabama...part of the "Bible Belt..." the epitome of Christianity.....oh wait....
2
The death penalty is not a deterrent.
It costs society more in real dollars to sentence a person to death then it does to pay for lifetime in prison.
Recent developments in DNA evidence have reversed enough murder convictions to raise the certainty that innocent people have been executed by the state.
That leaves only vengeance as a reason to support the death penalty, and vengeance is a meal that poisons the cook.
7
So, at this point, why did the state wait until the last moment? Why not have him back tomorrow and hang or shoot him? Just because the State couldn't get their act together for intravenous execution, there are other "humane" methods. The death sentence was handed-down, but was not carried-out, thus justice was not served to the people of Alabama. Regardless of the many in New York who have a distaste for the death sentence, that's what the People of Alabama want. They didn't get it.
NYT publishes a column on the death penalty, readers fall all over themselves to say how "barbaric" it is to punish the sensitive souls who have committed murders, or even serial murders and how we should never take a life. However, when a column deals with the subject of allowing innocent but ill seniors or disabled people access to health care that might prolong their lives, the same people who say we should keep murderers alive, say that invalids, whose only crime is being old or disabled and inconvenient to others, should just be "unplugged", and ASAP. Very odd priorities, it seems to me.
' ... the same people who say we should keep murderers alive, say that invalids, whose only crime is being old or disabled and inconvenient to others, should just be "unplugged", and ASAP'
This is baffling - whom does this refer to?
2
I was referring to NYT's frequent columns advocating "assisted suicide". Commenters to these columns almost always agree with NYT that innocent, but severely disabled patients should be PTS, like dogs, if their "quality of life" is not up to a certain standard. But then the same people will turn around and advocate for keeping even serial killers alive for decades, because of the "sanctity of human life" or "we are not God" argument. I just find a contradiction there.
Care to provide a link to the column that you reference in your comment? I'd guess you'd be unable to find such a statement. Fake news, me.
1
It's too bad the Union won. If the Confederacy had won, the United States would not be embarrassed by the retrograde values of the south.
I think most people are smart enough to know that vengeance is not the useful or honorable way to operate a court system or government, or anything else for that matter. It is merely fodder for entertainment by the greedy, calculating media/TV production industry. A recognition of every person's basic worth, education and forgiveness are logical, possible and consistent with the desired condition of human life by all. We need to start educating people right in all ways, not "entertain" them with bloody murder, suspicion, danger and guns. That is all made up junk that has taken hold, and makes hay for a wealthy few and skews the minds of men in the wrong direction.
2
"In President Trump, Sessions has a strong capital-punishment ally. Trump tweeted “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY” for a New York terrorist suspect in November, one of more than a dozen tweets calling for the death penalty since 2012. He has hinted strongly that he thinks the death penalty is the way to solve America’s drug crisis." Perhaps they have looked to the Philippines for a model system that has shoved the judicial system aside in favor of street executions of addicts and drug dealers, carried out by police and paid assassins. Evidently there is no reason to wait for a judge and court to provide for due process of law.
2
Thanks Mr. Cohen. Perhaps this will be a wake-up call to all the liberal denizens out there who because of Doug Jones' Senate victory now imagine that Alabama is some bastion of decency and progress. It's not. Jones beat a pedophile once banned from a shopping mall for hitting on high-school girls by a whopping 1.4%. He wasn't even able to get a simple majority of the votes cast. In fact, a majority of Alabama voters actually either supported Moore, or were content to seem him get elected whilst avoiding the moral hazard of voting for him by casting their ballot for a write-in candidate. Such is what passes for moral courage and dignity in that benighted state.
5
In a nation where the murder of school children by a weapon of war that is legally purchasable, is it a surprise that we continue the barbaric act of ritual murder by the state? No. Human beings still to this day delight in watching torture.
3
So we should feel sorry for Mr Hamm? He’s lived 30 years longer than Mr Cunningham who he killed and orphaned two young children.
3
Another reason to oppose the death penalty is the deep psychic and spiritual injury it inflicts on the society that imposes it. There is a nasty karmic blowback on us when we indulge our thirst for revenge.
3
Perhaps a humane execution would be to use breathable anesthetic until death occurs. Considering the horrible death awaiting this person from cancer, this would be as humane as putting a dumb animal to sleep. Anesthetics put people (and animals) in a near death state which is carefully controlled by an anesthesiologist. Were this man operable for his disease he would be anesthetized for the operation with great care taken not to kill him. In the end, we all die, and we hope it will be as painless as possible. Despite this man's deeds, a humane death is better than a painful one.
The political issue in this article obscures the practical realities: The community is burdened by prolonging the life of a person who took the life of another member of the community. The lost member no longer contributes to the community, and the perpetrator is a burden to those that remain. Did the community have a choice of live vs. death? One would ask this because a repentant should get life in prison, whereas an unrepentant gets what was given by the criminal. Does Alabama law consider this?
2
Why is it so hard for people to understand that being in prison IS the punishment? You are removed from society and your family/friends. Why are we determined to remove the last vestiges of dignity and humanity as well?
Here we are after being taught that vengeance belongs to the god(s). Where is their Southern conspicuous Christianity now?
4
When I was a Correctional Officer, it was drilled into our heads from day one that “People are sent to prison AS punishment, not FOR punishment.”
1
Not sure of the point. If he is guilty most people don't care.
2
I'm a moderate, non-partisan so not generally sympathetic to the right. However, it never ceases to surprise me when anti-capital punishment people start their argument by describing the unbearable suffering of the criminal. It wasn't until the 5th paragraph where Mr. Cohen casually mentioned the victim and his/her fate. Did the victim suffer when losing their life? What was the exact circumstance of the victim's death? How is the victim's family coping/grieving? You would have a little more credibility if you showed some degree of empathy for those who suffered as a result of a truly violent crime.
2
What always bothers me are the people who shout the loudest for the death penalty are the same ones that shout the loudest to abolish abortion mostly on religious grounds. What happened to "Thou shalt not kill"? Does it only apply to fetuses? Why?
1
A European friend of mine struggled to comprehend how a people notorious for mistrusting powerful government (which he considers a virtue), are somehow comfortable granting their government the power to kill its own citizens.
I tried to explain it. I did not succeed.
4
I have no sympathy for Hamm. But we never talk about those enlisted to perform an execution: what must this grotesque torture scene have done to the execution squad? Or what about the ghouls watching through the window?
Mr Hamm deserves little pity - but other lives are tainted as well. We must get rid of the death penalty.
1
I find the death penalty morally acceptable but in the real world a waste of time and money, especially for a defendant dying on cancer. But I do object to one point that the author makes. You can't complain that 30 years on death row constitutes torture when it is the defendants pursuing endless appeals again and again that cause the delay. I doubt strongly the author would be happier if we executed people a few months or even a few years after their conviction.
3
This should not happen to anyone. Only Doyle Lee Hamm truly knows what he experienced last Thursday. Anyone else can only speculate on the horror show of an execution gone wrong, and unfinished as well. I am putting this mildly.
Whether you believe in capital punishment or not, no human deserved what did occur.
To the best of my knowledge, approximately 5 or 6 countries still used beheading (usually public) as the method of execution for capital punishment, and this was as recent as within the last decade.
Additionally, beheading was (and is) not always limited to what is considered a capital crime in over 98% of all the countries in the entire world.
Today, only Saudi Arabia uses public beheading as punishment for a capital offense, which is not in the least limited to murder.
As I wrote in the beginning, only Mr. Hamm truly knows what he experienced. However, if I was forced to chose between the 2 methods described herein for my own capital punishment, I assume I would select beheading.
I know I sound morbid, but that is what was described in the article. This is the world we live in today.
1
There is a scene in The Americans where a young Russian woman convicted of treason is aimlessly tracing patterns on the wall of her cell. The guards come to get her, gather her few belongings, and lead her down to the basement. She is presented before an officer at a plain metal table in wide hallway who informs her that her appeal had been denied and that her execution will be carried out immediately. She has time to wail, sink to her knees, and then BLAM, she is shot in the back of the head. That is comfort with the death penalty. Correctly, we are not comfortable with it the USA, even in Alabama. We were comfortable with it, this man would have been shot 30 years ago. Ironically, the execution depicted in The Americans was much less cruel than what Alabama did to this man.
1
In this age or any; cruel and unusual punishment to be ashamed of. Yet many people lack the complexity of being to feel empathy for someone labeled “convicted killer” regardless of circumstances. We can criticize and try educate but only coming from and extending compassion and love can we inspire it in others. And so we must.
2
If we do end the Death Penalty
will we then re-structure our "Lack of Justice" system
to ensure the innocent people are not sentenced to prison ?
Can someone explain to my why, in such Opinion pieces,
we are told so little about the victim Patrick Cunningham.
As for "Lust for Blood" the Supreme Court signed off on
Hamm's execution.
Advances in DNA/forensic science are now greatly reducing the likelihood of erroneous convictions.
Someone should tell Trump, who intermittently calls for our military and intelligence agencies to use torture against our enemies, that he needn’t look further than our own application of the death penalty as in the botched execution of Mr. Hamm in Alabama. We don’t need to practice torture on foreign combattants- we continue to do it to our own citizens.
3
Well..... that turned my stomach.
Makes it hard for me to differentiate the depravity of the inmate vs the depravity of the state.
My country hurts me right now.
4
The root cause of Capital punishment comes from the bible, an eye for an eye, and it’s still popular in the bible belts of Alabama & Texas.This orchestrated murder is cruel & inhuman and must end.It accomplishes nothing,murders continue in both Alabama & Texas & other States where there is Capital Punishment.
6
A poor state that chooses to spend its resources to kill a dying man.
14
Why this constant effort to save the lives of MURDERERS! This man lived 30 years after the crime. Yeesh! You mean to tell me that it takes that long to prove that this man actually did do this crime? That being said, let him die a tortuous death from the cancer. Oh wait, I'm sure his lawyer will argue that they have to send him to the Mayo Clinic at government expense in a last ditch effort o save his life. Again Yeesh!
7
Roger Cohen is right, of course, about the barbarism of the death penalty. But beyond that, by the depth of his thinking, and the quality of his prose, on issue after issue he has become the preeminent Times columnist.
4
The civilized world has abolished this kind of legal murder. Consequently many of the Union's States are highly uncivilized. On top of it they are utterly stupid. The former communist East German state, Stalin's horror regime and others executed thousands "by an unexpected shot in the neck". That was at least quick. In parts of the US they still roast people alive for up to 40 minutes or torture them with drugs which don't work. A painless overdose of morphine would do the gruesome job just the same. But of course it's so much nicer to make a ritual of it.
11
The cold-blooded killer of a stranger deserves clemency? He's already lived way too long. I can send him back home to his Maker in a split second. Let me have a go at this psychopath.
3
It’s easy to talk tough in the abstract, but killing often takes a toll on the executioner, too. I’ve almost never heard combat veterans talk as if killing is so easy. In interviews, wardens responsible for executions are always somber and very often seem haunted by the weight of the work. I knew a guy once who got hired on the kill floor in a packing plant. He lasted less than a week, and said nobody liked the people who could bear dropping cattle all day.
2
Brave words delivered from the safety of your keyboard...... I bet you’d think twice if you had to look into his face.
1
I'd consider it my moral duty to remove this dangerous unremorseful person from human society.
I would ask trump if he thought the death penalty was appropriate for treason.
7
Nothing illustrates better the utter moral depravity of a state than the headlong rush to execute a dying man.The British learned that the hard way from James Connolly,hopefully Alabama will find it’s way to decency.
5
Was what this person did to his victim "decent"?
The death penalty was abolished at first on a temporary basis in the 1960's. There was a series of controversial executions that prepared the public mind but even so until the last few years a majority of British people in opinion surveys expressed approval for the return of the death pernalty.
Connolly had nothing to do with it.
(Obviously I would agree he was a brave man who died fearlessly for his cause though.)
Maybe after the horrendous torture we put this dying man through he deserves his last few months in a hospice.
4
Not a pretty picture of Alabama or America. Shame on Alabama! Shame on us !!!!
8
Healthy America needs a divorce from pathological America.
15
I was on vacation last week on a cruise. I made the mistake of getting in a hot tub. Usually the creatins I fear are floating in the water but this time they were embodied in the other peoplein the tub. From Alabama they began to talk about Trump, high giving and generally displaying their deplorable-ness. It saddens me to report that I felt hatred.
What has become of me that I now hate strangers?
Sad.
3
Good Grief ! just take him out & shoot him. Problem solved
11
I have no tolerance for executing the condemned or the unborn.
2
Your consistency is admirable. I recently waded into a social media posting advocating a "pro-life" rally under the banner that "all life is sacred," by asking whether members believed in abolishing the death penalty. I was attacked for being "cynical," "uncaring" and lacking in decency and compassion. All I did was ask a question.
I am very much anti-death penalty but this story really should have least mentioned why he was on death row.
2
I don't know what crime Hamm was convicted of and I'll assume his receipt of the death penalty was justified. That being said, what purpose does it serve to execute a man who is already dying of incurable cancer? Especially in view of the farce that ensued as the executioners attempted to find a viable blood vessel to inject the death cocktail.
As another (fictional) guy from the area once said "Stupid is as stupid does".
4
If there's anything I enjoy, it's watching Christians jump through so many pretzel-shaped intellectual and moral hoops to try and make this okay.
9
Progressives are appalled at the execution of ONE murderer and do not bat an eye at the execution of millions of fetuses.
I have long given up trying to understand how their minds work. It is as if the world has been taken over by Martians pretending to be human beings. And I have little doubt that some of the Martians will now write back to me, in "righteous anger"!
4
I couldn't understand what Mr. Trump is talking about when he says,
'Make America Great Again!' America wasn't NOT great.
Except, having read this article I get it! You can't execute people and
have a 'great' country.
America..........you HAVE to get rid of the death penalty. You are so
letting yourselves down by continuing to use this barbaric ritual.
5
Remember too that the filth that is our leader took out an ad in this paper calling for the execution of five teenagers for a crime they did not commit. And he still claims that they were somehow guilty despite DNA evidence to the contrary. His and Sessions' blind bloodlust is basically the mentality of the lynch mob.
17
I find the death penalty abhorrent. What I find more abhorrent, however, is the way we try to disguise an execution by pretending we are using some kind of "humane" way of killing the prisoners.
Do we somehow think we are putting our pet "to sleep"?
If you want to execute someone put them in front of a firing squad.
Or strap them to an electric chair.
Or use a guillotine.
And televise the act so that tax payers and citizens see what is being done in their name.
We may put our suffering pets "to sleep" but many times we shoot the rabid dog.
Let's either abolish the practice or at least show some honesty.
Let's just abolish the practice, can we?
11
The application of the death penalty as practiced in Alabama, (The Buckle of the Bible Belt), is barbaric and definitely unchristian. It would be kinder to put the folks to be executed up against a wall and shoot them. Perhaps Alabama, one of the poorest and most backward states in the Union, should have a lottery that would sell chances for the opportunity to participate in a firing squad. Roll Tide!
4
This is obscene.
8
So many people with so few doubts.
8
The reason he was on death row for 30 yrs is because of people like you. Bring back the short drop and sudden stop of hanging. Special fast track appeal process in 365 days and if not overturned, then marched straight to the gallows. our technology now adays provided indepth ability to come to the correct conclusion
3
Who are we?
3
Execution of a man on death row for 30 years, suffering from cancer, should be called what it is: a thrill killing. Someone in Alabama is enjoying this.
119
His name is Sessions
1
Tom, my thoughts exactly. Someone is enjoying their job as a torturer.
2
You see what you choose to see, not necessarily what is actually there.
As a family member of 2 murder victims whose killers got off much more lightly than they should have, I've no sympathy at all for this lifelong criminal and murderer. We'll be no poorer for his departure. Personally, I'd be content to let him die slowly and alone from his disease. My sympathies lie with the rule of law, decency, and basic humanity. Treating a criminal in this manner, no matter how deserving, cheapens all of our lives. Being able to commit this level of moral and physical violence on any human being makes it more likely to happen to any human being.
72
Cohen touched on the likelihood that Hamm didn't exactly have the best legal representation or treatment by the criminal justice system, which is probably one reason he wound up on death row.
I'm sorry for the loss of two family members to a murderer, but Hamm didn't kill them, so your lack of sympathy so a little misplaced.
4
Once again, the United States is the outlier nation. Apart from Japan, the US is the only country in the developed world to practise the death penalty. In my view, the death penalty is nothing more than state sponsored revenge.
14
To those who are blaming the Republicans, this isn't a right vs. left issue. Ann Richards allowed 50 executions on her watch. I vehemently oppose the death penalty and have long wondered how my progressive friends can cheer the demise of the guy on the gurney. If some on the left will say you can't be a Republican and be a decent person (which I've read over and over in these pages), then I will say you can't be a Democrat who preaches love and forgiveness and compassion and still support the death penalty.
6
I am for the death penalty, but taking 30 years is ridiculous. Shorten the appeals process and get it over with. There are many cases out there where the smoking gun, so to speak is literally in their hands. In those cases, how can one possibly delay the execution by decades. It is true that some cases are questionable, but the death penalty needs to stay in place for particularly heinous crimes. Some people are simply not redeemable.
19
If you shorten the appeals process, you are guaranteed to execute more innocent people. We know of men on death row who were later exonerated. As human beings, we're fallible, but we're too proud to admit it. The problem with your idea is that every death penalty case is already considered a heinous crime. If one person's appeals process is shortened, everyone's is.
4
And then there are the times we got it wrong
3
Yes, some people are not redeemable. But how is judicial homicide the answer the answer to that, when life imprisonment is an option? Besides the obvious reality that the judgment of a literal "smoking gun" is still subject to error, out society's systematic and intentional taking of lives of those already in secure custody, even the heinous criminals, interferes with our own redemption. We have a choice not to take lives, even from the worst of those among us.
2
There are parts of the country (including Alabama) that historically not only conducted mob lynchings, murder and torture of "others" on frequent occasions. It appears that sometimes the authorities themselves aided and abetted these sinful acts. Little Jeff Sessions, intimidated by most other men, no doubt got a macho thrill standing up for killing humans or animals for that matter. Lynchings and the aftermaths-dead humans hanging from trees-even served as a form of entertainment in those parts of the country. At heart these mob acts reflect a desire or need by the participants to take part in a reality snuff movie. They appreciate that Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. In a song lyric. The song made a fortune. The line touched many heart strings. Not all the bad guys today are on death row. But they sure are well-armed anyway.
10
Great article, but it's the comments section that really makes Mr Cohen's point... and in the NYT's? The death penalty has its victims, obviously, but it is not the fate of convicted criminals that is the most troubling to me. It's what the death penalty says about the societies that employ it! It's about you and me my fellow Americans! Take a look at a map of the countries that practice it and tell me you want to be associated with them in this regard. Interesting that they are the most religious countries in the world.
But the greatest irony of all is that in Christian America the most religious regions of the country, like Alabama, you find its most ardent supporters in spite of the fact that their savior and redeemer was the most famous victim of the death penalty in history? And by crucifixion!
The death penalty is all about meaningless revenge! Revenge! The only way to redeem yourself is to take action against it! Look in the mirror my fellow readers. Is that an institutional murder starring back at you?
8
These comments are hysterical, as in hyperbole, not humor. Many innocent people must endure procedures no more painful than this convicted killer. This was not torture.
And he deserves to die and should already be dead. Where is the compassion for his victims?
3
Yes, but those medical procedures endured by innocent people are generally by choice and to benefit the people being treated. I'm pretty sure that going through pain you know is made in effort to end your life is much more traumatic than having a medical procedure to prolong or enhance your life. Just saying...
2
I grew up in Alabama and just like the stereotype says, it is a society deeply influenced by religion. What's baffling to me, is how could so many people who claim to be "washed in the forgiving blood of a lamb" could support such a vengeful and truly barbaric and frankly, un-Christ-like practice. Hypocrisy knows no limits in America.
26
Cody...Alabama has fake religion, not real religion.
It's much more of a mental disorder than anything else.
19
Socrates, fake or real? They are the very same.
So it’s not just black people in Alabama who get to have the state take their lives. I guess if you’re poor, that counts against you down there, too.
This Death Belt lust to extract Shakespeare’s morality play, Measure For Measure, must cause God’s own face to frown with wrath. Whatever this poor man’s sins, surely time has done its work. The benighted people in the so-called Bible Belt would sooner wreak vengeance upon a person than employ God’s divine salve to wounds opened through human fallibility.
I wouldn’t trade a thing for their harsh judgment upon so many that, on the Day of Wrath, they might come to find out that small mercies tendered when they could have done the most good but chose, instead, to be the highly-flawed and evilly-imperfect instruments of God’s wrath, will reap their just rewards.
Donald Trump and Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions III are the right and left hands of the devil’s instruments of torture. Living in these United States isn’t a bargain. We’re all complicit in this stinking charnel house of Republican self-righteous “morality.”
19
I can't comment on the ethics of execution. On the one hand, I can't condone state-imposed killing.
On the other hand, the state does such a poor job containing criminals (Ted Bundy escaped and went on to murder again and again; Philip Garrido (Jaycee Duggard's kidnapper) was paroled after under 10 years for a violent rape for which he was sentenced to 50 years with no parole) that sometimes killing the bad guys seems the only way to ensure they won't harm others.
That said, if you're going to execute someone, do it efficiently and as painlessly as possible. As other commentators have noted, you can force them to breathe nitrogen and die painlessly of brain death; or put on a fentanyl patch and cause them to stop breathing. The options for a humane death are wide and varied.
There's simply no call for torturing someone this way. Even if you believe that what he did was so heinous his rights don't matter, it's not okay for human beings to torture each other.
Fix this, Alabama. Either kill painlessly or get out of the business of killing.
7
The most horrific part of this is not that man's botched execution,but that he was on death row for thirty years.
12
The Right to Life Party hard at work
14
With increasing certainty and volume we seek to paint people like Hamm as evil incarnate. In effect, we are keeping the attention away from our own flawed society and its system of justice.
7
I am an anesthesiologist. Part of my job is making sure patients have proper IV access for surgery.
Many prisoners on death row have poor IV access, largely because many death row inmates were IV substance abusers when they committed their crimes. It is likely that many of the recent botched executions were botched because the IV cannula was not in a vein.
If states really want to continue to execute inmates, they should adopt an execution method that does not require intravenous access, such as the use of a gas chamber.
And, definitely, DO...NOT...USE...ANESTHETICS...TO...KILL...PEOPLE!!!!!!
We have lost the ability to use thiopental, a drug still used for human anesthetics in many parts of the world. Many anesthetic drugs, like midazolam (Versed) have a wide safety margin, are not intended to cause death, and work poorly during executions.
38
If you want to execute someone, stand them up against a wall and have the 2nd amendment guys do what they do best. Quick, no muss, no fuss. The idea that you have to dig around in someone arms and legs for an hour or two to make it "humane" then have them flop around as the drugs work or maybe don't, is nuts.
2
We should also remember that Alabama is home to millions of vocal, self-proclaimed "Christians" who eagerly support the death penalty--and see absolutely no contradiction.
10
For so many good reasons, we should eliminate the death penalty.
However, it's something of a puzzle that jurisdictions that use the death penalty have so much confusion about technique. Alabama could have killed Hamm with a reliable method involving bullets or ropes. Why this bizarre focus on injections?
Here's a possibility. We just don't want methods that leave an ugly corpse. Shooting involves blood. Hanging is disfiguring. Electrocution isn't pretty either.
Beyond the reaches of the legal system, Americans kill quite a few people every day. I wonder how many of those are by injection?
3
Alas, the governor's decision on clemency will be base on what is considered to be "public opinion" in Alabama or, to be more precise, the opinion of likely voters in primary elections. Meanwhile, a modest proposal: extend the death penalty to white-collar crimes, e.g. obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI, and money laundering.
2
I guess I have to deal with my own contradictions. I have long held the death penalty to be excessive and unnecessary, yet I always adhered to it being appropriate for treason in time of war because that crime jeopardizes the life of every American.
Then Trump came along. Now my anger is stoked every day. Because of my anger I have called for use of the death penalty. I also opined for a mandatory death penalty for murder by assault weapon. I abandoned my position (and regret doing so), yet intellectually I haven't. I just let my anger get the best of me and I lashed out.
I think the death penalty exists because of our anger and fear. If charged with the deed to actually kill someone, to be the executioner, the vast majority of people would not comply. Yet, institutionalization of the penalty just makes it a required duty on someone's job description. It sanitizes what is a deeply personal, gristly, rage or fear needed to take someones life.
We should just stop doing it.
2
Life in prison would seem to be more punishment than the Death Penality could ever be.
5
Of course Hamm is no doubt completely innocent and the evil authorities just want a sacrificial lamb. Maybe Trump is engineering his execution for a few votes in AL - or some other drivel. Yes, who will console this poor killer as the authorities desperately search for a "humane" way to dispose of him for good. To bad we dispensed with humane executions like hanging or firing squad only to be left with controversy about where we'll get the drugs to remove there monsters "humanely"!
1
I notice that none of the anti DP commenters here admit that criminals prey on others and that murderers have VICTIMS. Where is their compassion for the victims and the victims's families? Where is their empathy, for example, for the prison guard who was murdered in PA a few day's ago? Why is the compassion so one sided?
3
Oh, and as the prison guard wasn’t mentioned in this article (did I miss that?) I’m not sure why you’re making the argument that being anti death penalty means you’re one sided. If anything, I’d suggest that many who are anti death penalty recognize grey area in a punishment that is so final.
I’m not arguing for predators to be put back on the street. I’m not suggesting we ignore the fact that some people are a danger to society. I am saying that human beings, whether they’re prosecutors, LE, judges, or civilian jurors, make mistakes. Killers go free. Innocent people get locked up. Many are where they belong: behind bars. In the event mistakes are made, you can unlock a jail cell, but you cannot raise the dead.
Torture isn’t okay, no matter whether it comes from a psychopath or from state employees who notch an execution. It isn’t about believing a murderer is a good person, but rather, not seeing torture as a solution to a problem. That is not justice—it’s inhumane and barbaric. If we want to be better as a society, we aren’t going to get there by believing torture is no big deal.
3
I’m anti death penalty in all but the absolute worst of cases (I can only think of a handful where I believe it may be warranted, but even that makes me uncomfortable.)
That said, of course there are victims & of course the victims have families. Just because I find the death penalty to be wrong doesn’t negate that. It doesn’t mean I think crime should go without punishment. Some people should not be allowed in free society. I can’t comment on this specific criminal case bc I know nothing about it.
That aside, it doesn’t take away from the fact that while this guy (may) have committed a ghastly crime, it doesn’t make it right for people to be almost gleeful in attempts to find ways to execute him & to continue repeatedly when it doesn’t work. He may be a murderer; the state & those who attempted his execution are attempted murderers. It may be state sanctioned, but it doesn’t make what’s happening any less disturbing or grotesque.
Given the rate of wrong convictions & false confessions, I’m not okay with the death penalty. And I mean, come on—life in prison isn’t exactly a trip to Disneyland. It’s not like the person is being rewarded.
27
If we are going to execute people, we shouldn't do it in a way that sanitizes the act for the audience (such as the silent injection of drugs). We should do it in a way that makes overt the gravity of the act. We should use the guillotine or the firing squad. The audience can then see the act to which they have committed themselves. This is not an act of kindness, as in putting a pet to sleep. It is at the best a harsh justice; at the worst, a terrible vengeance. That should be made clear to everyone.
3
Sadly the mob will vie for close seats and cheer as the guillotine descends.
1
I agree in some ways that if we allow state sanctioned killing of criminals we should be forced to view the results -- and yet, I fear that would not deter folks from being for the death penalty, and it might even encourage a carnival-like atmosphere. Remember this is a country where horrible lynchings and other atrocities were common, and postcards were even made to commemorate the gruesome acts. Crowds gathered and cheered public executions during the French Revolution, and the martyrdom of Christians was bloodsport for the Roman masses for several hundred years. Considering what people find entertaining, I don't have much hope that forcing folks to view "unsanitized" state enforcement of the death penalty would change the minds of those in favor of it.
2
The government needs to ban the death penalty in all states---it's unconstitutional.
6
A bigger question is why does the US have these crime rates in the first place?
I don't believe our gene pool is much different than western European countries, Canada, and Australia.
One difference is poverty rates. Which by the way, Alabama is a good example.
And we are the richest industrial country GDP / capita on the planet.
It is only getting worse.
Good luck to our children.
6
I have never been so ashamed of my country. We have become the most cruel, violent, poorly educated, hypocritical, selfish, and gullible nation in the developed world. We are fast on our way to becoming a pseudo-democracy, ruled by rich and selfish people, most of whom did nothing to gain their wealth other than inherit it or lie, cheat and steal it, like our so-called president. I have little hope that the country I grew up in will ever return.
9
...and what about the family of Patrick Cunningham and Mr. Cunningham himself. They have suffered unspeakable loss and grief for over 30 years and the young Mr. Cunningham lost all hope of any kind of life by the murderer's cruelty. But that is of no concern of course to abolitionists.
4
...and what, pray tell, is the torture of a dying man going to do for Mr. Cunningham and his family? Bring them some sort of sick joy?
5
It is of great concern. And if murder by the state would bring him back to us few would object. But what benefit do you see for "the young Mr. Cunningham" in this vile execution?
4
Cohen brushes aside the facts in the case, saying he "won't go into the merits of the case," probably because the evidence against Hamm is overwhelming. He further states, "30 years on death row constitutes torture." What does Mr Cohen instead propose? Letting him go?
3
His proposal is the last sentence of the story.
4
I am as liberal as they come, but I take extreme objection with Mr. Cohen's argument that "30 years on death row constitutes torture." The reason Doyle Lee Hamm and others sentenced to death spend so long on death row is because they file appeal after appeal and habeas petition after habeas petition, prolonging the process. With each court filing, they attempt to re-try their original trial, usually accusing their original trial attorney of incompetence. If we are to have a death penalty -- an issue to which I am utterly agnostic -- it needs to be carried out in timely, effective manner, because right now, those on death row have a much better chance of dying of natural causes while on death row than in the execution chamber.
7
If we are to have a death penalty, it needs to be carried out in a timely, effective manner **that provides ample opportunity to absolutely guarantee there is not even a fraction of a percentage point chance the guilty verdict was made in error.** The need to quicken the death penalty process is a common assertion. It's almost never accompanied, however, with any suggestions for how to accomplish that within a justice system that is massively overburdened and understaffed. Thoughts?
As I near completion of law school, one of the many things I have learned through study and first-hand experience is the absurd and almost unbelievable level of error in our courts, especially the criminal justice system, which sadly extends all the way up to capital cases. There is ample evidence of both 1) prisoners currently on death row who are possibly or even likely innocent, and 2) individuals who have been executed by the state for crimes they almost definitely did not commit.
Personally, I don't understand why execution is considered any more "just" than life in prison without parole, especially considering that executing a prisoner costs notably more than keeping him or her alive in prison for life. When you add in the irreversibility of execution, and the ever-present possibility of executing an innocent party (to me, maybe the most unacceptable and tragic failure of any advanced society), it becomes remarkably difficult to justify the continued utilization of the death penalty.
1
The death penalty does not deter crime, debases us a society, and is unjustly administered. It is remnant and continued expression of the same sense of vengeance and "frontier justice" that leads people to believe all manner of myth about how to make themselves and the community safe. The tenets of our criminal justice system should be to first keep the community safe from further harm and then to support the direct victims of the crime. When possible, we should seek remedies from the perpetrator and aim to rehabilitate that person for a return to society. Instead, we continue to seek to salve our emotions and shattered sense of safety with the blood of guilty.
80
Rehabilitate a muderer? Do you have any statistcs. I believe in the bible. There have to be severe consequences for somebody taking somebody else's life, except in self defense. If you take a life, your life will be taken from you. That is justice.
How do you "know" the death penalty does not deter crime? How is it possible to come to that conclusion if you haven't taken a poll of all criminals? And what felon would admit to contemplating a capital crime? Putting a person to death is inhumane, but there is no way to determine how many murderers would not commit their crime if they knew that death row was staring them in the face.
The irony of all this is that in an effort to execute someone with a compassionate approach, to minimize the barbarity of what we're doing, we have created a Rube Goldberg-like contraption, with straps and needles and plungers and blinders and the occasional discombobulation of efforts like this one. We make it appear that killing someone is incredibly difficult, when the fact is that killing someone in this manner -- that is, in a way that lets us walk away feeling like we did well --- IS incredibly difficult.
The easy way would be to put a pistol to his temple and pull the trigger, once. But that would be absolutely horrific, wouldn't it? And we certainly wouldn't want that.
1
I recall an article only a few days ago in which people close to the case of Nikolas Cruz voiced their reservations about seeking the death penalty for him. To remind ourselves, Mr. Cruz is that rarest of beasts, a "school shooter" who was caught alive after murdering 17 and severely injuring more than a dozen at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day. If sentiment about the righteousness of the death penalty has evolved to the point where even an outrage such as this, the wanton, long announced and premedidated killing of schoolchildren, causes pause for thought, the case of Mr. Hamm must be Alabama being Alabame.
3
I have to read the paper again to make sure that those events did not happen in Iran, the People Republic of China or Saudi Arabia.
130
There is a bootstrap feel to the arguments against executing Mr. Hamm. If he had not had the benefit of endless post-conviction challenges to his sentence he would have been executed years ago, when his physical condition would not have presented obstacles to his execution.
However one views the death penalty, it is not a game that the convicted person should be able to win by using multiple challenges without merit to cause delay.
3
Killing people is wrong, period. Have you not read the Ten Commandments? Why should someone facing such a barbaric act by the state not try to put off his death? Your comment seems very cold-hearted.
2
The death penalty is barbaric but it's really hard to feel sorry for convicted murderers.
5
DP may seem barbaric, but to deny that almost ALL humans have some barbaric instincts is naive. Given human instincts, deterrents that discourage/punish harming others are necessary. And I don't think some comfortable jail time, with health care , education, and internet access all paid by tax payers is adequate deterrent.
1
"Some live that deserve death. And, some die that deserve life...can you give it to them?"
The truth of any particular situation is hardly known to outsiders such as you and I. That's a pretty high horse that you're sitting on, just saying.
1
Do you consider yourself a Christian..?
1
It’s easy to be against the death penalty when you are not the victim of the crime. The best way to gauge your own true feelings about the death penalty is to ask yourself if you could serve as executioner. If not, you are against the death penalty.
17
Against, four-square. I wouldn't/couldn't be the executioner.
1
"The man who pronounces the sentence should swing the blade."--Ned Stark. Of course, we know what happened to him.
1
We are the only advanced country that still uses the death penalty. This neatly correlates with the fact that we are the only advanced country that uses religion as a buttress for ignorance and against enlightenment in its electorate. It is laughable to say that we have a separation of church and state here. Religion permeates and corrupts any semblance of logic or tolerance in this country and this is just how the right wing politicians and all the varieties of Christian clergy like it. It's the societal and intellectual equivalent of barefoot and pregnant. You're too preoccupied with your current situation to see your true predicament.
Advanced countries realize that if you put religion in its proper place, which is anywhere it chooses to be, except in government, then government can govern for all its constituents. But if you allow religion to infuse and infect the political process, then the dominant religion becomes the dominant social compass and all must follow its diktats. That's where we are right now; sadly.
53
Lethal injection is such a sick joke. If we really favor the death penalty then let's be adults about it: with guns, all bullets are real, no masks, face-to-face. Maybe stripping away all the bells and whistles would make us reconsider if this is really a civilized way to treat another human.
20
Yes, this individual without a doubt is guilty and deserves the death penalty. But, as the author of this article commented, the sometimes capricious application of the law in capital murder conviction deserves the consideration of no recourse if an execution is in error. No death penalty would have to be applied across the judicial spectrum regardless of the definitive demostration of guilt.
1
I am in agreement with other commenters in that I too, while very left-leaning, have no problem with death penalty in cases where absolutely NO doubt of direct guilt exists - not 'no reasonable doubt,' not for an accessory, but NO doubt whatsoever for those ADULTS (not children) who directly commit heinous murder - intentionally. And, particularly, for those who commit crimes against children and animals - murder, assault, abuse, malicious neglect. It needs to be applied with extreme caution and with all caveats aforementioned. I feel no need to pay rent for serial killers, psychopaths, perverts and sexual predators.
4
Alas we do not live in a perfect world, mistakes are made, innocent people are convicted and are executed.
How many innocent peoples lives are worth the trade-off to punish those who meets your standards of "heinous murder"?
I would that the costs to convict and the years of death penalty appeals* are exponentially more than just the base cost of imprisoning someone for life from the beginning.
*Appeals being an attempt to avoid the wrongful killing of an innocent person which are unfortunately not always successful.
5
You want people who kill ANIMALS executed? Hoo, boy.
2
Next up, the Alabama legislature goes to using hanging, the firing squad, or perhaps both at the same time as an alternative method.
And puts it up on pay per view to help out with the state budget.
It's not a sick joke, it's the country we are.
15
Not out of the realm of possibility, I agree -- this is of course in the same part of the country where the practice of torturing and murdering black people was considered entertainment: lynchings were often well attended by the local citizenry, who brought families and picnics.
5
Your comment is not out of line at all - public hangings were exactly that, public and for show. Partly to reinforce the idea that "commit a crime and this could be you," partly just for the spectacle, partly to satisfy the bloodlust of "justice" being meted out. The last one was 1936, Owensboro, Kentucky. Now we like to be more secretive about it, though ironically we've become a nation awash in violence, in both real life and fictional drama.
Firing squad may be more effective than being repeatedly poked for lethal injection, though I am reminded of the movie "Breaker Morant," where Australian Lt. Harry Morant, about to be killed by a British firing squad for war crimes, tells them and the British establishment who convicted him off with a final comment, "shoot straight, you bastards."
We are all illegitimate.
2
Drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, hey, crucifixion, that'll sell tickets down South. Just survey the entire sordid history of human cruelty and have a different theme each time.
2
I sent this in a private email to Rep Gail Chasey, and to the Governor of New Mexico, when NM abolished the death penalty in 2009. I don't suppose they will object to me repeating what I said:
'The killing of prisoners, even if there can be no doubt about their guilt of murder, is a disgusting and barbaric practice, that makes victims of the convicted man’s friends and family, without doing anything to help the friends and family of the victim. The death penalty satisfies a savage need for revenge and when it is inflicted mistakes cannot be remedied. There is good reason in many cases to suggest the death penalty is carried out casually, and for political reasons, and does little to make people safer.'
I still think this. Executions are disgusting and atavistic and cannot be defended on grounds of decency or sense.
58
The main complaint set forth here is that "when federal courts so eagerly get into the business of trying to find novel ways to execute a man, when the most august judges get their fingers bloody in this way, I think it does an injustice to justice.”
However in truth all they did was to order a medical examination to see if the defendant had any usable veins through which to inject him. And this was simply because the doctor from Columbia who concluded that “the state is not equipped to achieve venous access in Mr. Hamm’s case" was an expert testifying for the defense which of course the court does not rely on.
So all the justices of the circuit court did was to order their own medical examination to determine whether the death sentence can be carried out. They did not delve into which veins may be found to be suitable for injection either. So the federal courts did in no way get into the business of trying to find novel ways to execute a man.
And now after what occured in the death chamber where they could not find a single vein through which to inject him it is not the duty of the governor to commute a death sentence that was imposed on a man who the court decided deserved it, but instead to return the case to the courts, where it belongs.
2
I'm impressed with the eloquence and persuasiveness of many of the comments supporting the death penalty and there is no question Hamm's crime deserved the sentence he received. However, I question the wisdom and timing of the attempted execution in this case.
I suspect that death penalty opponents will not like this, but the use of chemical injections for executions is absurd.
Executions can be as painless and nearly as stress free as turning in for a night’s sleep. Inhalation of pure nitrogen gas (nearly 80% of air is nitrogen) for a few minutes induces sleep; brain death begins; after about five more minutes it is complete. It also works the same way with CO2 gas (about 0.03% of air is CO2).
7
I've wondered about that...there would be no discomfort, as CO2 level would drop rather than elevate. But, hey, high explosives would work just as well. There are any number of ways to kill someone so quickly they wouldn't even perceive it. The lawyers get involved, and ethics and common sense both become irrelevant. Why are we killing people, are we that omniscient as to always be appropriate with our murders? Is there some not-so-passive-aggressive torture going on here?
1
Carbon Monoxide would be an efficient and painless execution agent.
You write: "Then the 11th Circuit required that a doctor be present with ultrasound equipment."
No doctor worthy of the title should ever consent to play any part in an execution. Any part. And any doctor who does should lose his license.
43
I do not see why lethal injection is the only method ever considered these days for executions. This case is a prime argument for the ability of the State to choose the most expedient method, based on the facts of an individual case.
2
mikecody: Are you volunteering to personally execute people? If not, your support fo the Death penalty is hypocritical.
2
As a matter of fact, I would be willing to do the job.
Has anyone asked Mr. Trump what the penalty should be for working with the Russians to influence an American presidential election? Let's find out just how pro-death penalty he really is.
8
If one knows survivors of hideous crimes, or the surviving families of the victims as I do, one comes away with a lot more support for the death penalty. Some crimes are so heinous, so outrageous, so vile, that a case may be made that the assailant has forfeited his or her right to life. The terror that surviving victims, or their families experience follows them the rest of their lives. They are never the same people. Thus in theory, I have no objection to the death penalty applied in these limited situations.
That said, there is no doubt that the death penalty is not applied equally, to all those who commit violent crimes. Minority offenders are much more likely to receive the death penalty. And well-to-do criminals have the benefit of excellent legal counsel whose efforts lead to more advantageous settlements or verdicts (if life in prison may considered as such).
So until our society finds a way to dispense justice equally, I will stand against the death penalty.
8
Might we still deploy the death penalty against those American citizens
judged to be traitors? The crime Hamm was condemned for was vicious and personal, with deep emotional triggers. The crime of treason is dispassionate, reasoned, and calculated with complete dispassion for the victims. Since those charged with conducting the death penalty seem uniformly inept, perhaps we could, as we've done with so much else, outsource the task to China.
2
Who did the state's cost benefit analysis on pursuing the execution of someone who is terminally ill? If one can somehow momentarily set aside the immorality, what remains is a giant waste of the people's resources.
4
There is a tragic irony in this case. Consider the situation of a good person, one not convicted of any crime, who is suffering from an incurable fatal disease. Often, such people will request the right to end their lives quickly and painlessly. It is the conservatives who most vigorously deny that person the right to choose a death with dignity. No, they say, the individual must suffer all the pain of the disease because only God can decide when he should die. In the case of Mr. Hamm, however, the same people are all too willing to override God's will in order to take Mr. Hamm's life before he succumbs to the cancer. While they lack mercy they have an abundance of wrath. This is more a case of vengeance then justice.
54
How can you possibly have the ultimate penalty pursued so enthusiastically when the means to that end are so corrupt and lacking? From corrupt prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence to inadequate or zero representation of the accused based on their economic status, the US justice system is a failure. Putting people to death utilizing a failed system is murder.
8
I used to be against the death penalty and then I changed. It came as a result of all the changes I had to make in my life to be safe as a single woman. The more repeat murderers I saw in the news, the less I worried about their pain and suffering. Also, if we went back to firing squad the fear and pain of these killers would be intense, but almost instant. And it would be foolproof.
27
Kathleen: your safety is not threatened by people in prison. If you think that fear of punishment enters into a criminal's calculations about committing a crime, sitting in on a few criminal trials will easily disabuse you of the illusion. I would argue that our society's casual & utilitarian attitude toward violence, of which support for the death penalty is a small example, makes us less safe, not more.
8
Executions aren't going to make you any safer, but innocent people will inevitably die.
11
You might want to educate yourself further. Read about Cameron Todd Willingham and decide whether or not he should have been executed. Its pretty scary stuff.
8
America in the south embodies the worst of Christianity. They decide to execute a man who is dying, who has no usable veins, who has spent 30 years on death row waiting to be executed. And then Alabama subverts medical technology in a failed attempt to execute this same man. The only comparison this reader can think of is what the Spanish Inquisition did to Jews and thousands of Christians who had converted to Judaism or were raised as Christians but followed rules their converted parents had set down: evil.
39
Welcome to Southern Baptist Hell on Earth, where almost any Christian cruelty can be rationalized by the demented interpretation of an angry, vengeful, punitive Lord from "sweet home Alabama".
Hamm's crime was horrible, but given the rich history of police, prosecutorial and judicial corruption and error in this country, the death penalty is not a great idea, nor is state torture.
But we're talking about a state run by people like Jeff Sessions, who misses the 1950's and thinks 'good people don't smoke marijuana'..... a state disproportionately managed by white Baptists where 67% voted for Roy Moore as a Senator a few months ago, that 30-something-year-old district attorney and Holy Roller hanging out at high school football games looking at the cheerleaders and cruising the Gadsden Mall for teenage girls.
The Lord works in sick, twisted, perverted, cruel ways in Alabama.
"Let us pray"....for Alabama's fire and brimstone religious cult.
150
The only questionable activity by Alabama in this case was why did they wait 30 years to execute. When there is no question of guilt, they should be swiftly put down.
My best friend in high school was murdered. They caught his murderer at the scene. I only wish the police had shot him then. Instead, this was a State where the death penalty was revoked.
So, after being on death row, he is now eligible for parole every 5 years. Justice? Rehabilitation? Tell that to my friend's family.
1
Dun’s comment may have been dumb in New York City, but it had the advantage of being honest, which should be as good in NYC as it is in Alabama. That’s something we could use a lot more of from public figures anywhere.
Doyle Lee Hamm shot a motel clerk in the head from a distance of about 18 inches who had been caused to lay down on the floor during the commission of a robbery, intentionally and immediately causing the clerk’s death – for about $400 in total swag (https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/court-of-appeals-criminal/1989/564-.... He was involved in another robbery-murder elsewhere within a few hours of that one.
The smart thing to do if you’re really intent on intentionally stealing from a man everything he can ever be – for $400 in cash – is to do it in NYC, where society doesn’t impose a death sentence. But, then, intelligent murderers don’t commit their abominations in Alabama, or, often, don’t even get caught. But Alabamians seem to understand something about culling the herd of vicious murderers and have a problem with paying for their incarceration for decades, until they die of natural causes or they escape to murder again – or kill a guard with a wife and a couple of kids. Or even for a few months, as they rot from OTHER bad choices taken over useless and predatory lives. I’ve always liked folks from Alabama.
9
Up until fairly recently, convicted felons sentenced to die in Alabama were electrocuted. Hamm should be patched up, Ol’ Sparky should be given an oil-job and brought back in commission for one last service, and Hamm should be made to pay for his horrific crime by the state, not by the consequences of a body dying of cancer, Hep-C and years of intravenous drug use. This is a man who has lived for over THIRTY YEARS since he committed his horrific crime.
Clemency? How about clemency for the wife of Patrick Cunningham, who lost her husband to a single gunshot to the head on 24 January 1987, fired by Doyle Lee Hamm with the express intent of taking an unresisting Cunningham’s life – for $400.
Go ‘Bama! And Roger’s kindly heart is bleeding all over my New York Times.
10
Thank you, Mr. Luettgen, for reminding readers that the rabid criminals so beloved of the left actually hurt and/or killed innocent people. My heart aches for the family of the prison guard who was viciously murdered in PA a day or so ago. I agree with you completely.
3
Easy to imagine that the "more intelligent" murderers you reference would rationalize their cruelty with precisely the same obliviousness to consequences masquerading as moral superiority.
The death penalty is just another tool that the extreme right in control of the Republican party uses to divide. The civilized world has eliminated this punishment except for the USA.
95
How would you feel if someone murdered your own child? Would you still consider the death penalty barbaric? Or would you want justice?
How is it that a large swath of our country missed the ideas of The Enlightenment? How is it that they seem to torture logic to make their points? Are they teaching the whole Constitution in schools or just the parts they like?
46
Pretty much limited to one part of the second amendment, I'd say. And I would also bet that few people in this particular swath even know what the Enlightenment, was, let alone subscribe to its ideas.
4
One of the best articles I, in my long life (I'm 70) anda 50 years of journalism, I ever read.
8
"...suffice it to say there were oversights and misrepresentations. "
The claims of inadequate counsel refer only to the fact that the jury didn't get to hear of Hamm's disadvantaged childhood which may have mitigated a death penalty in the case. There is no argument as to the facts of the case - that Hamm did shoot and kill a store clerk during the commission of a robbery. He confessed to the crime. Cohen only presents the facts that bolster his argument and the vicious killing is conveniently left out. It took a jury 45 minutes to sentence him to death. Do I think Hamm should have gotten the death penalty? No, life in prison would be more appropriate. Are there cases where the death penalty is appropriate? Yes, there are.
15
I think the death penalty (at least the threat of it) does have some utility especially when used to coerce criminals into giving up information or confessions by taking it off the table. That means it needs to be a real option for especially heinous crimes. Otoh, 30 years on death row and hours of poking for a vien in a sick, dying man is not a reflection of a just or honest society.
6
I’m about as left wing as you can be BUT when it comes to the death penalty.
If there is NO doubt of guilt,no circumstantial evidence.
I have NO problem with ending the lives of those who horribly hurt and kill others.
The same goes for the method of death of the perpetrator, whatever works.
Sorry Roger while I feel for those falsely accused those properly accused should be punished.
19
Read the files of the Innocence Project and see if there was any doubt in the jury's or judges that gave a final sentence.
6
The problem is, there's never any such thing as "no doubt." Enough people have been wrongly executed that everyone should be concerned.
6
You don't get to have it both ways, John. If one innocent person is executed, that is a more gross violation of humanity than a thousand "properly" executed. Moral weight matters more than vengeance.
7
When the state is more to eager to kill than the criminal, whose crime is worse?
98
The criminal.
1
You have obviously not experience the murder of a close friend or relative. Until you do, who are you to judge what to do with the worst of the worst?
1
If we want to understand gun violence in America, look to the side at the people we torture every single day in our penal system. This grotesque account is proof, as if more were needed, that American society has and has always had a mental problem. The furious desire to cause pain in others, to murder, to speak ill, to insult is, I am ashamed to say, is evidence of the stripe of brutishness and madness that we see now in the White House. That's why he is there, tweeting his venom to the world. How sad. I also oppose the death penalty and I am grateful for Roger Cohen's unblinking prose. We should not avert our eyes.
63
Couldn't agree more. Let's not forget the innocent men women and children killed by wars and drone-based Hellfire missiles every day in the middle east. Even our Nobel-Prize-winning president has the blood of innocents on his hands. When our nation's leadership kills without conscience, why is our focus so exclusively on the private deranged murderers?
5
What about the VICTIMS of the vicious murderers you love so much? Why is all your solicitude and kindness directed towards people who have been proven to murder others, instead of towards the victims, their families, and should the murderers go free, their future victims?
Proponents of the death penalty often portray the condemned criminal as the lowest of the low and worthy of such punishment. In the case of Doyle Lee Hamm, the man is indeed contemptible and his crime, repulsive. But Alabama's failed attempt to execute the man also spotlights the number one reason for banning capital punishment, as most other countries have already done. It degrades us and lowers us to the level of the criminal. In the name of Justice, the death penalty makes all of us complicit in a murder, as otherwise decent folks scream for blood. And the rest of us just watch. Alabama will no doubt insist on executing this wretched man no matter what. At this point the effort descends into the absurd.
Life without parole is justice without vengeance. And it is a punishment worthy of a great people such as we.
200
"It degrades us and lowers us to the level of the criminal." Exactly.
9
Additionally astonishing is the fact of the ancient pre-Christ ethos that buoys arguments in favor of maintaining the death penalty at all. If those of us, religious and nonreligious alike, could agree at least that we do support a system that assumes any human being to be capable of remorse, of learning, & of change over time - we might be more interested, so many years post-offense - in hearing about each individual journey our institutions purport to support. AND - if we are humane - we must also know that the reality of our own fallibility (evidenced daily in our lived experience) - is equal at least to that any juror peer has known in his or her own daily life - and that that acknowledgement of fallibility alone means that assigning death as a consequence for anything a fellow human may have possibly actually done - is fundamentally so flawed that it can only ever be entirely out of bounds.
4
Since Mr. Hamm is already condemned to death by the cancer raging in his body, the need for the State of Alabama to hasten his demise, to cheat the Grim Reaper at his own game is perverse and sadistic. The man has already spent thirty years on death row. Will justice more be served if his death comes at the hands of the State, rather than via nature? Even the emblematic "Justice," with her balanced scales can peek out from under the blindfold, look at them and find the State of Alabama is wanting. Sorely.
260
The death penalty is disgusting; our collective right-wing, christian nation somehow forgets their own god's admonishment that 'thou shall not kill'.
Could it be they never read their own Book? Or, perhaps they just feel like they have to help their all powerful god with the 'vengeance' part of his job?
What the man was convicted of likely happened in a split second of bad judgement and youthful ignorance.
What the State is doing is being done slowly, over time, with careful thought and planning and despite the suffering of a human being. One action cannot be called 'wrong', if the other is considered by so many to be 'right'.
22
Youthful ignorance? Are you joking?
There's a kind of demented fanaticism on the Right, that treats the immoral or self-defeating consequences of a position as an occasion to demonstrate ideological purity & immunity to the example of reality. You see it in the perpetual laws to put more guns in more places, in the support for torture, in the dismantling of the ACA & the ingenious barriers erected to health care access, in the moves to make services for the poor punitive, in championing different forms of discrimination, & many other areas. In the criminal justice system it's especially grotesque, since they simultaneously work to make justice more unattainable to the poor, to protect patterns of erroneous conviction, and to make imprisonment & other punishments more gratuitously cruel. The point is not justice or punishment; the point is self-satisfaction. Encouraged by the ubiquitous examples of armchair fascists in the media, as well as actual fascists in politics, they see political action not as a pragmatic response to a problem, but as a form of participatory entertainment, where the purpose of political narratives and actions is to assert & confirm unexamined beliefs & passions. The actual consequences are irrelevant. And so they become the evil they condemn: in the present instance, murderers.
26
Since republicans won't act on the thousands of senseless murders in the Nation by their gun policies.
Since they refuse to enact or back the ACA, which is expected to impact the lives of millions of poorer Americans.
Since they have never seen a region in the World that (they think) would not be improved with a couple million tons of bombs.
Since they are throwing around the threat of a nuclear war with North Korea which would lead to millions of deaths.
Since they refuse to help millions of poor women around the world with birth control, which will lead to many, many deaths.
The question must be asked: does the republican party support mass murder or genocide?
It is certainly not pro life or family.
5
"The real objection to capital punishment doesn’t lie against the actual extermination of the condemned, but against our brutal American habit of putting it off so long. After all, every one of us must die soon or late, and a murderer, it must be assumed, is one who makes that sad fact the cornerstone of his metaphysic. But it is one thing to die, and quite another thing to lie for long months and even years under the shadow of death. No sane man would choose such a finish. All of us, despite the Prayer Book, long for a swift and unexpected end. Unhappily, a murderer, under the irrational American system, is tortured for what, to him, must seem a whole series of eternities....
That wait, I believe, is horribly cruel. I have seen more than one man sitting in the death house, and I don’t want to see any more. Worse, it is wholly useless. Why should he wait at all? Why not hang him the day after the last court dissipates his last hope? Why torture him as not even cannibals would torture their victims? The common answer is that he must have time to make his peace with God. But how long does that take? It may be accomplished, I believe,
in two hours quite as comfortably as in two years. There are, indeed, no temporal limitations upon God. He could forgive a whole herd of murderers in a millionth of a second. More, it has been done.
From the "The Penalty of Death" by H.L. Mencken, 1926
9
For another point of view, see George Orwell, "A Hanging."
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/hanging/english/e_hanging
1
Jesus in Matthew (5:38-42) specifically repudiated the idea of an eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth. He advised in the face of evil to turn the other cheek.
Separating an evil person from society until the end of his days provides society the same benefit as his execution. And for those who believe in the acceptance of Jesus and his teachings as salvation, a much surer route into heaven. It is the height of hypocrisy that the bible belt is also the execution belt.
81
If Jesus was really versed in Judaic law there's no way he would repudiate "an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth." One of the most unfortunate of mistranslations of the Christians completely misunderstanding Judaism in our "Judeo-Christian tradition."
Never was an eye or tooth gouged out as retribution for someone accused of doing the same. It was a monetary compensation. If you accidentally caused someone to go blind in one eye, you owed them financial recompense. Similarly if you knocked someone's tooth out. And the sums mentioned would seem trivial to what would be rewarded to the plaintiff if someone caused an injury resulting in blindness or loss of a tooth in our "Judeo-Christian" court system. But in the ancient world, that system of grievances available to the plaintiff was a vast improvement on the alternative, when the injured party had no recourse whatsoever. Similarly, rarely did the courts in ancient Israel actually implement the death penalty despite all the verses listing the numerous crimes punishable by death, and enumerating which ones were to die by which methods. They said if the Sanhedrin executed one guilty party in a hundred years that was a bloodthirsty court. Books of the Talmud are full of nothing but loopholes for the guilty party. Which makes the whole defense of capital punishment based on the bible (Old Testament) equally fallacious.
Google it, nothing but a house of cards.
1
Grotesque, but I'm unfortunately very unsurprised. US prisons and death penalty stories are usually a disheartening dive into medieval horror.
38
at least,Mr.Cohen had the decency and
journalistic integrity to mention Hamm' s
victim.apparently his lawyer did not.l am
not a huge supporter of the death penalty,
unless it involves treason or the murder of
children,but I am always appalled at the way
opponents of the ultimate punishment leave
out the victims,as if they did not exist.
they too deserve our conpassion.
9
When is the last time you saw a prosecutor showing empathy for the defendant? The State (which represents "the people," not the victims) has an increased burden to seek justice, not vengeance, against the accused. They have an obligation to all of their constituents, not just the victims. Defense counsel is tasked by the Constitution of our great nation with representing only the defendant. Yet, as someone who represents death sentences individuals, I can assure you that death penalty lawyers have a far keener appreciation for humanity and human suffering in all its forms - including the victims' families, who have experienced unspeakable loss - than most prosecutors do. More than once, I have had victims' families thank the defense team for giving them real information about the process, not just using them as pawns in the system to obtain a conviction.
6
The defendant CHOSE to murder other human beings. The victim did not CHOOSE to be viciously killed. Big difference.
Sorry, but as a retired Criminal Defense Attorney, I never once met a Prosecutor who cared about the victim or the laws. They beleive that everyone arrested is guilty and deserve the harshest punishment there is. They will allow witnesses to lie and will withhold evidence in their drive to convict. They only care about the victims and their families if those families demand the harshest punishment available.
3
The writer castigates the 'cruel and unusual' punishment of leaving this man on death row for 30 years, whilst working as hard as possible to throw sand in the wheels of justice to slow up the process.
At some point, you have to respect the democratic wishes of the people to arrange a justice system as they wish. If the writer honestly felt that time elapsed was a crime, then he is complicit in it.
3
When I was a young man, I was conservative as it was understood in 1970. But it turns out that the poor (really anyone who can't afford a good criminal attorney) are the victims of a system of justice that baits on criminal to save his skin by lying about another. And if you do seek justice in court, if you lose, you end up worse off than had you taken a deal.
I am no longer a conservative and despair that we have Jeff Sessions as head of the Justice Department now.
58
Killing people legally is what we Americans do better than anyone. Whether it be the death penalty or the gun fetish we have enshrined in our Constitution, or the ubiquitous killing that permeates our movies and video games, we seem to have a fascination with the taking of life.
Legislating away all of the above is not going to happen anytime soon, because killing is our national pastime. It is deeply engrained in the American way of life.
23
Murder by the state is not justice,it is retribution. It is for poor people only.
When was the last time a person of "means" was put to death in this country for capital crimes?
122
The main short and long term effect of the death penalty is to help re elect idea bankrupt pols. like some of them are in Ala.
Join the rest of the civilized world (and not so civilized) and abolish it.
24
I used to wonder whatI would do after I retired. That was awhile ago. I no longer wonder as my hands are full trying to make this country decent again. Some people I know talk about us humans as bringing about our own destruction and don't have much optimism about makings better. I don't feel we can really live that way, even if it's true that we are hopeless. The death penalty is founded on an abysmal notion of revenge. I hope for the day when we are better than that.
36
Places with behavior as collectively bad as official Alabama's change only when the pain from outside pressure becomes unbearable. I do not understand why international companies continue to locate operations there. (Toyota recently announced a big factory in Huntsville.) If the next international company they court eliminated Alabama as a finalist, and explained to Alabama's recruiters that this or that officially-sanctioned barbaric practice was the reason, things would change down there. Taking away the corporate goodies is the only way to shame them into climbing onto a higher plateau of civilisation.
18
Expecting large corporations to be moral actors when they're simply shopping for the cheapest labor and most generous tax breaks is wishful thinking. I won't change my loyalty to Toyota's excellent products over this factory, but I'd feel better about the company if they did re-think it.
I think that is a correct request, Roger, to grant Hamm clemency allowing him to end his life in prison, although it is has to be said this is no boy's dream neither.
4
I am afraid we will actually see more executions and horrific stories like this due to flawed legal rulings from Federal courts. Trump is packing the court with people who think like he does. While the federal court system now acts to slow Trump down on a number of issues. Soon it will act as an accelerant that will last a lot longer than Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress. Millennials like my son will have to live in a world where the court system acts against the wishes of society as a whole. Only term limits for judges can remedy this problem.
37
There have been countless NYT editorials written against the death penalty...enough to fill a big city library. But nothing has changed and nothing will for the foreseeable future. The death penalty is here to stay because the American people by an overwhelming majority believe it is a just punishment. This has been proven in survey after survey....that point can't be emphasized enough. There's simply no way anyone is going to have much compassion for a cold blooded killer. The death penalty is a strong moral statement that some crimes are so horrible that they deserve death. The death penalty should not be the default sentence for most murder cases, but it should be available for particularly horrific crimes in which there is no doubt who the perpetrator is. Timothy McVie is a good example. Even some liberals who do not support the death penalty in general but who lived in Boston did advocate it for Tsarnaev. Given that fact we need to find more effective ways of administering this penalty. Clearly lethal injection has too much room for error. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, has argued that of all the available options, the firing squad might well be the most humane. “In addition to being near instant, death by shooting may also be comparatively painless,” she wrote. “Condemned prisoners,.., might find more dignity in an instantaneous death rather than prolonged torture on a medical gurney.” The firing squad also has the advantage of being carried out by trained professionals.
5
Look at this round of surveys: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/national-polls-and-studies
It is incorrect to say "The death penalty is here to stay because the American people by an overwhelming majority believe it is a just punishment. This has been proven in survey after survey..."
3
Yet you don't link to a single survey.
I wonder, how many executed people have been interviewed and asked about the sensations they experienced as they were murdered by the state? Did you hold a seance and get the answers yourself?
4
Answering all comments. I didn't put in surveys for death penalties because I have limited space to make my point. And those surveys are well known. Below is link to a recent Gallup Poll. Here's what's important. Support for the death penalty among Americans is 60%. It is falling among Democrats. But among Republicans support for the penalty is almost 80% which means red states will continue to have executions. We can all argue whether they are humane or not...but they will continue to happen for the foreseeable future and beyond. Given that fact it is important that they be done correctly. Given what happened in Alabama most would contended that such a death would violate the Eighth Amendment, which protects prisoners against cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection, despite the fact that it was designed to mimic anesthesia, has been hamstrung by the fact that most physicians refuse to participate in executions. This leaves prison staff to perform a series of procedures that require professional medical skill. That's why we have botched executions. Firing squads, on the other hand, use professional marksmen. For better or for worse, we have a lot of people in this country who are very good at firing a gun. Given the alternatives the firing squad would not only be be an acceptable replacement but a significant improvement.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/196676/death-penalty-support.aspx
2
How are we a civilized society when some of us think that the right thing to do is to rush to kill a dying man? I am not a death penalty supporter, but if it is imposed there should be a required time line (outside, no more than 10 years) of how long a prisoner can spend on death row. After that the sentence should automatically become 'life without parole,' which to many would be a fate worse than death.
91
The reason is that we are not a civilized society. We talk a good game but that is it. The last time I checked the Innocence Project found over 300 people on death row that were innocent. We let people die from disease w/o medical help. 25 percent of American children go to bed nightly hungry. That is NOT a civilized society.
45